With the rising of living standard, consumers have come to prefer a matte surface to a glossy surface in many daily applications, such as furniture or interior decorations of a building or vehicle. A high gloss surface reflects a large fraction of light and thus may cause damage to an Observer's eyes. To the contrary, a low gloss or matte surface has antireflective properties, reflects fewer light and thus can reduce such damage. Furthermore, scratches on a low gloss or matte surface are more difficult to be detected due to its antireflective properties. Consequently, rapid market growth of the matting agents is expected owing to rising consumer demand.
It is known that the gloss value depends on the smoothness of a surface of an object. Therefore, one approach to reduce the gloss value, i.e., to achieving the matting effect, is to increase the roughness of the surface by applying a coating layer of a matting composition on the surface. The matting composition contains matting particles which results in a concave-convex microstructure on the coating layer, thereby the gloss value can be reduced.
Silica particles are commonly used in the industry as matting agent for its low price and ready availability. However, the problem associated with using silica particles as a matting agent is that the density of silica particles can be up to 2.2 g/cm3, so the silica particles in an emulsion are easy to settle. This leaves the storage stability be not maintained for a long period. In addition, the compatibility between the inorganic silica particles and the organic resin binder is poor.
Thus, the present invention provides a novel core-shell particle, which not only possesses good matting ability but also has good compatibility with an organic resin binder.